A year ago today I was cleaning up from a lovely party at the home I shared with Gavan. We'd had dinner with 14 or so of our closest friends, and many of them stayed with us to ring in the New Year.
And here we are, a year later, and I'm without Gavan, without a home in Pittsburgh (and, truth be told, without a real home in NYC), and coming off what's been one of the hardest years of my life. Life can throw some rather troublesome curve balls at you. And I, to be frank, have never been much of a batter. The very idea of my signing up for Little League made my whole family laugh out loud.
Luckily, I had great friends with whom I could spend New Year's Eve. Doug Rees and Janet Dickinson took pity on me and not only invited me to dine with them, but allowed me to tag along to a party at their friend Kathi Gilmore's apartment, as well. All in all, it turned out to be a great holiday.
And on top of that, I've finally found work! Well, kinda. I interviewed and registered with a new temp agency on the day after Christmas: The Laury Group. They're a small agency, but they came very highly recommended by Connie Selliers and Lanene Charters. And they called me the very day I registered to work in-house the next day. What started out, I think, as a one-day test assignment to see if I was really as good as my resume has turned into work until I leave for Pittsburgh to do Tony McKay's play. At this point, any amount of work is great!
So I'm looking forward to getting back to Pittsburgh and jumping into this play. I'm a little scared about the whole thing - did I tell you that I'm playing a transvestite prostitute? There's potential here for me to look like a major, major idiot. The very idea of me in drag, frankly, no matter how much weight I've lost, just scares the hell out of me. Talk about taking risks!
Oh, I don't think I shared these pictures that I took when I was in Pittsburgh during December. The first one is of Mike Schmalz, our stage manager. Mike's a rather interesting guy - he's a long time production stage manager who's gone back to school to get an MFA in Design so that he can teach. He spent many a year on the road with traveling companies, and I guess he's had quite enough. Can't say I blame him. Gavan used to tell stories about loving being on the road and at the same time hating it. It certainly made it understandable that he'd want to go back to Pittsburgh to settle down.
The second picture is of David Larsen, who's the actor I'm working with in my portion of the evening. The show is a series of three one-acts following a family during the 1950s, '60s, and '70s. David plays the son, and I play the prostitute he picks up. Long story. Anyway, these guys are only two of the reasons that the show's been fun to work on... I managed not to snap photos of Gary Kline and Tony McKay, both of whom were at rehearsals - which is helpful, since the former is the director and the latter is the playwright! Hopefully, when I'm back in Pittsburgh for the rehearsal week and the run, I'll have more opportunities to snap photos. One photo you can rest assured will not appear here is the one of me in drag. The very thought of there being photographic evidence of this train-wreck-to-be makes me break out in a cold sweat.Since I hadn't done it in a while, I snapped a photo of myself, too, once I got settled into the apartment in Brooklyn. I happen to like this photo a lot, for some reason. I think it's a picture that's got the rare attributes of both being a good shot and actually looking like me. You can judge best - what do you think? The other reason I like it is that I played with it in Photoshop, which I really hadn't had much of a chance to use, to do the blur effect on the background and thus put the focus on me. If I'd been smart enough to cut down on the light on my face, this might actually have been a really great picture. As it is, I still like it.
Hopefully Toni won't think I look anemic when she sees it.
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